


Having to Live (The Dying Inside Remix)

by cupidsbow



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Angst, F/M, PWP, Remix, cupidsbow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-18
Updated: 2008-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:56:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupidsbow/pseuds/cupidsbow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Lee doesn't understand that he'd been dead to them.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Having to Live (The Dying Inside Remix)

**Author's Note:**

> **For:** remixredux 2006.  
> **Original story:** [Having Someone to Live For](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2314933/1/) by ALC Punk!

"Does your father know you're alive?" Kara knew it was a mistake as soon as she said it--Lee's mouth twisting with frustration as the words hit home--because of course Lee wouldn't understand that he'd been dead to them: suddenly beyond their reach, beyond all hope of ever making amends, so far beyond Kara and the Commander and all their harsh words and unsaid things.

Lee doesn't understand that he'd been dead to them, because he's in that other headspace: post-combat desperation. His eyes are glassy with too much unused adrenaline and exhaustion, and his whole body is trembling with a frenetic need to reconnect with something real.

Kara knows that feeling well, the way reality rushes at you like a raider from your blind spot, the way you feel unhinged from time, and your actions are all instinct with no regard for tomorrow, because the only way to survive is to act fast, do whatever it takes, be in the moment, right _now_.

Which is why Kara doesn't say anything when Lee grabs her and yanks her down the nearest corridor, to a spot barely out of the eye line of anyone walking past. Doesn't say anything when he pushes her back against the wall, leans in and mouths her neck. Doesn't say anything when she feels the hard press of his dick against her hip and she knows this is really going to happen, they're really going to do this. And even though she knows it's a bad idea, she still doesn't say anything--too caught up in the feel of Lee's body against hers, her hands tangling in his hair--because this is guttingly, frighteningly like her deepest, most secret fantasies of being able to touch a dead man one more time, hold him, love him, just one more time. So she doesn't say anything, but she can't hold back a tiny, inarticulate sound as want spears through her, electric and painful, from neck to cunt.

Lee puts his hand over her mouth as though he thinks she's about to say no--or worse, that she might say someone else's name. His teeth find the juncture of neck and shoulder--that spot--and Kara whites out, stops thinking anything at all, except _yes_ and _hurry_.

Her hands are sure, controlled; his are sweaty and shaking. It feels like a fight, the way they push and pull each other out of their clothes just far enough for her cunt to swallow his cock. They both moan. Kara manages to hook her left leg around Lee's ass so she has leverage; Lee's taking their weight, pressing them into the wall, keeping them upright. His hips are moving like a metronome, and every time he pushes in, the muscles all along his back shiver beneath Kara's touch.

Kara's thrumming with the tightening coil of so-close orgasm, gloriously, mindlessly alive inside her skin, and then Lee's smell hits her, the rutting animal musk of him and, oh, she hadn't known. She's sparred with Lee enough to know that his everyday sweat isn't as sharp as Zak's; and Lee's cologne is subtler, less sweet; so she hadn't known, hadn't known, hadn't known, how could she have _known_ that when Lee fraks he smells just the same? Sharp like ozone and astringent spices, cutting right through her, making her mouth water and her insides clench. And the only way she can keep in the sudden spill of words--_Gods, oh Gods, oh love, oh Lee, Lee!_\--is to bite the palm over her mouth as she shakes apart, shakes into a million pieces, dies inside with loss and want and a black, yawing pit of despair that swallows her whole as she comes and comes and comes, safe inside the cage of Lee's arms.

As soon as Kara goes quiet, Lee drops his hand from her mouth and cups her breast, thumbing the nipple, still lost in his own pleasure. Kara twines her fingers in his hair and presses his mouth harder against her neck so that he won't see her face until she's won back some control.

A moment later Lee shudders and Kara's body clutches at him, knowing what she wants before her brain does... she wants this, just this, just Lee. She growls with frustration at the realisation because, for the first time in her life, she's frightened of her own body and what it wants.

Gods. She can't do this again. Not with Lee. Especially not with Lee.

She runs a hand lightly over the curve of his skull as he catches his breath, letting herself have this one brief taste of tenderness, before she murmurs, "Done now, Lee," making it a promise against his skin.

He pulls out in response to her words, and she can feel the warm slickness of his spunk sliding down her inner thigh, but he doesn't let go; he keeps right on holding her, as though there's something more than desperation between them.

Kara's insides twist, and she can't bear it. She has to be free.

"Lee!" she says, and pokes him hard.

He barely twitches, and still doesn't let go.

Panic begins to thread through her, so Kara says the next bit with her best card-shark voice, letting nothing show except exasperation: "Captain Apollo. I have duties to return to if you're _quite_ done."

That finally gets through, and he slowly sets her on her feet before letting go and taking a step back. To her immense relief he doesn't look up, doesn't look her in the eyes, because even though she's good at bluffing, he knows her well enough to spot the lie.

He zips up his pants, pulls the flightsuit up to his waist, shuffles a bit from foot to foot, and _frak_, he's still not looking at her, which isn't as reassuring as it was a moment ago. "I have reports to make," he says, eyeing his shoes.

"Yes, you do," Kara says, resisting the urge to punch him. She can't resist the sarcasm, though. "Sir."

"Kara," he says, addressing his right foot. He looks sick with guilt.

Kara sighs, regretting every single thing about this situation (_liar, liar_), and wishing she could just walk away clean, pretend it never happened (_pants on fire_), but this is Lee, who never lets anything go. If Kara walks now, Lee will probably worry himself right into the brig for assault. And that would make life hellish, even more hellish than the Cylons have already made it, and not just for her and Lee. So instead, she does what needs to be done--because it's habit, because it's how things always play out when she and Lee get into trouble, and because this time it's her turn to be the peacemaker.

"Lee," Kara says, reaching out and saving both their frakking pathetic asses. She pokes Lee hard enough to bruise. "Stop that."

Lee shakes his head. "I... I shouldn't--"

"Hey," she says, cutting him off, because if she has to listen to him apologise, she really _will_ punch him. "What are friends for?"

He chokes on a laugh, and finally looks her in the face. His expression is such a mix of guilt and affection and post-coital goofiness that she smiles back despite herself.

"Yeah," Lee says, touching her hand, gently, the way he has a million times before. "Friends."

His fingers are calloused and familiar against hers, and she turns her hand over so they're palm to palm and holds on tightly for a moment, so glad that he's still alive to get into these kinds of stupid situations with her; then she pulls free and waves towards C&amp;C. "Now, go," she says, needing him to leave while the facade of normality is holding fast. "Make sure your father knows you're alive, Captain."

He gets it this time. She can see it sinking in that he was _dead_ to them; but he still hesitates for a moment, torn between two imperatives. After all, he wouldn't be Lee if he didn't take the time to ask, "You'll be..."

She swallows hard on the _No_, and manages to say, "I'm fine, you idiot."

Lee nods and takes a step backwards.

Kara can't quite face watching him walk away, so she pulls a rag out of her pocket and swabs ineffectually at the mess between her legs.

"All right," Lee says, but he's still just standing there.

Feeling uncomfortably naked beneath Lee's gaze, Kara gives up on pretending to wipe herself off and pulls her pants back up. "Am I really that intriguing, Captain?" She makes it a challenge, and for the love of all the Gods it actually works.

Lee flushes bright red and says, "I'll catch you later, Starbuck," as he turns to go.

"Much later," she calls after him, hoping he takes the hint and stays away for a good long while.

Once he's safely out of sight, Kara slumps back against the wall, feeling wrecked. Just... so damn tired of having to live. Even breathing feels like an effort of will. But she makes it: _in_, one two, _out_, three four.

She's had a lot of practice at this part.

After a while she gets tired of looking at the same empty stretch of corridor, so she wipes her face with the back of her hand and goes off to find something less self-destructive to do.


End file.
